A new Gallup poll helps to quantify the American electorate’s increasing disenchantment with the nation’s two-party electoral system.

Gallup has been polling Americans’ political identification for over 60 years, and for the first time a staggering 40% of all Americans now identify as Independent, versus 31% who identify as Democrat, and 27% who identify as Republican.

Fourteen percent of those who identify as independents reported leaning to the Left, whereas eighteen percent reported leaning to the right.

At a time of near-unprecedented economic turbulence, and when more Americans feel negative towards their government than at any other time in history, there appears to be a real opportunity for a Third Party to enter the fold and to offer the country real solutions that neither of the two major parties appear capable of delivering.